Entries categorized as ‘video’

One of the many big news stories coming out of Latin America this week is the advancement of the Colombian peace accords in Havana. We have A LOT on Colombia here at Lauinger, and I’m continually striving to get more. It is still too early to have any books or scholarly articles about the recent developments in the peace process, but if you are interested in current news and analysis, check out Latin American Newsstand, in which you can limit by date and language on the left, or CIAO, which you can also limit by date. In general I found simply searching on the words “Colombia peace” (without the quotes in the actual search) produced better results than “Colombia peace process.” Note that in Latin American Newsstand you can receive e-mail updates on the upper right of the results list, under “Save Search/Alert,” so you can be continually updated.

In completely different news, I just read this article that Basque culture will be the theme of next year’s Smithsonian Folklife festival here in DC in late June and early July next year. Information is not up yet about next year’s festival, but they are generally held in the same area on the National Mall, between 3rd and 4th Streets.

A quick keyword search in GEORGE reveals that we have about 635 titles in or about the region, people, and language. For articles on Basque history or politics, try databases like Historical Abstracts or International Political Science Abstracts, and for literature and language, MLA International and Linguistic and Language Behavior Abstracts. The Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada-Reno has a great list of links about Basque culture and history as well. I’d love to get at least a few more Basque language self-instruction resources for Lau, but they are few and far between. Do let me know (mrs249[at]georgetown.edu) if you see anything that interests you! I believe with the possibility of Catalan independence, there is also growing interest in the Basque Country, the Valencian Community, and Galicia as well, and I will continue to seek these resources.

I’ll end my last post of the year on a lighter note. My friend Neil let me know earlier today about this documentary on Basque strongmen. It talks a great deal about Basque culture and daily life, especially in the rural areas, and I think it is a good way to wind down at the end of the semester. Happy holidays to all and see you in the New Year! I’ll be back on January 4. Les deseo paz y felicidades en el año nuevo.

Greetings again from Miami! Today I had the pleasure of being the note-taker for a panel about “video indígena” here at SALALM. The speakers were Daisy Domínguez, Latin American Studies librarian at CUNY-City College, Nicole Karsin of Todos Los Pueblos Productions, filmmaker and director of We Women Warriors, David Hernández Palmar, a filmmaker based in Mérida, Venezuela, and finally Amalia Córdova of NYU. Together the talks presented a cohesive look at the challenges and joys of “video indígena,” and also presented some excellent collection strategies for librarians. We will try to make the presentations public, and I will be typing up the notes when I return to work after Memorial Day.

Recently at Georgetown, via interlibrary loan statistics, I have learned that the demand for indigenous resources is stronger than I originally thought. Of course I knew that there were professors and graduate students who worked with indigenous languages and literatures, but I am seeing that there is a good deal of demand from undergraduates enrolled in general Latin American history courses as well, just as an example. So expect more material by and about indigenous Latin American people to appear in the collections within a few months! Along with my colleague Maura Seale, I will also be creating a research guide related to indigenous peoples in throughout the Western Hemisphere. I meant to do this earlier this year, but, well, that whole school thing postponed it a bit! 🙂

More on this later, I just want to give a brief rundown on this excellent panel. Have a great rest of the week.

When we think of “streaming media,” we more than likely think of fun cat videos on YouTube, Netflix, or TV shows on the less restrictive networks’ websites, yet probably rarely as a library resource. However, Lauinger has paid for access to several excellent sites for streaming media…and no commercials! I have already written about Filmakers Library Online here, and I’ll highlight a couple more now.

Films on Demand has over 6000 films on a wide variety of topics (link). Under “Area Studies” you’ll find almost 140 films on Latin America, 275 titles relating to Spain if you search by title, and dozens of videos relating to Portuguese-speaking Africa. (Overall I found searching to be more fruitful than browsing, so my number of films about Latin America may be a little low.) Under “World Languages,” you will find many videos about Hispanic culture, literature and drama, and the Spanish language itself, all of which have optional or no subtitles.

A subset of the Internet Archive, the Moving Image Archive (here), has hundreds of thousands of freely accessible video/film resources. Admittedly, some of the films are of questionable value (a search on Colombia has a result described as “Camille feeding the pig in a new mall in Medellin”), but this is when it’s best to search using more specific terms.

If you need to cite these, all the major bibliographical styles now accommodate online streaming media. We have the latest editions in reference and some information online.

Finally, we have a list of several streaming resources on our Film & Television Studies research guide (link). We hope you find them to be useful, and of course let me or anyone else here know if you have any questions. I’m off tomorrow, so have a good weekend!

Hi there! No, I have not forgotten about this blog! I always forget how busy the first few weeks of school are, and some things fall by the wayside. Not that this blog isn’t important, but some things are just more important than others at the moment. But I have two posts in the works, and they’ll be up soon.

In the meantime, here is Pablo Casals rocking it out in a Catalan-French abbey:

The week is halfway over, and so let’s celebrate by watching this fun video, “Domingo no parque,” performed by Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes. It’s not the best video quality, but everything else is pretty spectacular. Watch it here.

Still here! It’s just been a busy week of working on a reference publication project, meetings, and getting used to non-conference living again. I have two quick posts today, and when I return from my vacation next week, I will write more about SALALM and also a great new electronic resource that we have just purchased, called Digitalia.

First, last fall I went to a presentation by Theresa Williamson, head of Catalytic Communities, an organization in Rio that works on improving the lives of people who live in the city’s favelas. And today I received an e-mail from them saying they have a new film available, called “Favela como Modelo Sustentável | Favela as a Sustainable Model.” It is excellent, and you can watch it here (in Portuguese with English subtitles.)

Second, on Sunday, in conjunction with the Joan Miró exhibit there, the Institut Ramon Llull is holding a concert at the National Gallery of Art called “Sounds of Catalonia.” More info here.

Off next week, and then back to semi-regularly scheduled posting. Happy 4th!

I was lucky to see this excellent Brazilian singer/songwriter last fall at the Millennium Stage series at the Kennedy Center. If you haven’t gone to these concerts, they are every day at 6 PM (including all holidays!) and often include Latin American and Iberian performers, and…they are FREE.